Dear Readers,
We received an email before christmas in answer to Mr Appleyards letter in the November issue of Kirkstall Matters. Please see below for his letter and I hope it is of some help/interest.
Jenny

Dear Editor
I would like to comment on Mr Appleyards letter in KM issue 111 , I started drinking in the George Hotel in 1957 and at one side off the pub was Watsons Place [where Oldridges garage stood and later moved to the opposite side of the road  and where the second hand car plot stands today] , the street after the pub was Rawson Street then Woodgrove Street and Durno Street, at the bottom of Durno street on Commercial Road  was the Woodman Inn owned by the Melbourn Brewery, but was taken over by Tetleys  Brewery in the late 1950s and  was  demolished  in the 1960s  this was the fourth pub on commercial road. I  remember Janet and her husband Norris when they came to the pub and also Mrs Appleyard vividly . I lived in the same street as her and  i had my 21st birthday in the George hotel.
Set back off Kirkstall Lane stood a row of back to back stone terrace houses, the ones that faced onto Kirkstall Lane and also the Abbey Inn was called Park Row, the houses at the rear was called Back Park Row these was accessed by two large arches [all these houses stood on part of today’s Leisure Centre and its car park]. In the early 1900s a few  Irish immigrant  families  settled in Back Park Row and
thus became known as IRISH ROW by Kirkstall locals.

Jack Toulson